Ormond Amateur Football Club
| Full name | Ormond Amateur Football Club |
|---|---|
| Nickname | 'Monders' |
| Sport | Australian Rules Football |
| Founded | 1931 |
| League | VAFA |
| Home ground | E.E. Gunn Reserve, Ormond, Victoria |
| Colours | Brown and blue guernsey, white numbering |
| Anthem | "It's A Grand Old Flag" |
| President | Mr. Richard Simon |
| Head coach | Mr. Ashleigh Lever |
| Captain | Mr. Boyd Upstill |
| 2015 | Division 1 |
Ormond Amateur Football Club is the second-oldest suburban club in the Victorian Amateur Football Association. The club was founded in 1931 by Mr. Leslie Edward Smith, and is located 14 km south east of Melbourne in the suburb of Ormond. In 2008 Ormond welcomed back recently retired AFL player Matthew Robbins as player and assistant coach. After competing in B grade in season 2009, Ormond were narrowly relegated and subsequently moved down to C grade for 2010.
In 2008 the Club won the C Grade premiership, defeating Hampton Rovers 15.12 (102 points) to 9.10 (64 points).
The club was founded in the early years of the Great Depression. A local businessman named Les Smith, believed that the local young people needed a constructive way to channel their energies in difficult times, and that he was able to help them do that through sport. Smith had himself been nurtured as a young player of Australian Rules Football in the Albert Park State School team, which included himself, Roy Cazaly and Frank Beaurepaire. All three had been presented with their uniforms by Henry Harrison, a founding member of the Australian Rules game in the early 1860s.
At the beginning of the 1930s, Smith approached a friend, Councillor Ernie Gunn, to prevail on the local council for a grant of land. Gunn arranged this, and in 1931 the Ormond Amateur Football Club was born. Smith served as president for most of the years between the first playing season, 1932, and 1959.
Les Smith's daughter, Betty Macgregor, recalls the club's foundation:
Dad was a champion footballer in the bush in his youth. He was dubbed the "Gippsland Flyer". He was training with South Melbourne when World War One broke out. Our family moved back to the city from Maffra at the start of the Depression, and we opened a newsagency on the corner of North Road and Newham Grove in Ormond. It was here that a lot of the planning was done to establish the club.
Of course it was a group effort. The original nucleus of founders included Cec Hattam, Mick Hassett, Peter Dawson and "Doc" Porter. Fred Yewdall was an early player who later went on to serve on the committee, so he was also involved with the club in one way or another from the early years.
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